WOWG:
In my previous message I pointed out that there were problems associated
with the decision to have the 5th f2f in Manchester, and proposed that we
revisit the issue. While the group clearly expressed a consensus for NY,
this was done in the absence of new information regarding the 6th f2f.
Basically, there is a large set of W3C meetings in March in Boston, and
the chairs believe we will have to hold our March, 2003 f2f in conjunction
with those meetings. It is likely that the group may feel differently
about a Jan. meeting in NY if we must have a March meeting in Boston.
I am proposing here two reasonable solutions given this new information,
and suggest we discuss this at the phone call tomorrow.
Proposed solution 1 ("the do-over")
1) Let's FIRST decide on the location of the 6th f2f. There are strong
arguments for having it in Boston, let's get those out in the open and
come to an agreement.
2) Given a location for the 6th f2f, let's then decide where, in general,
the 5th f2f will be. By "in general" I mean let's decide between Europe,
the eastern US, and the western US.
3) Given a general choice for the location of the 5th f2f, we will once
again accept proposals and vote for our favorite location.
OR
Proposed solution 2 ("the compromise")
1) Have two f2f meetings, one in the eastern US and one in Manchester. The
two meetings would be linked by video/tele/etc. conferencing technology.
Attendance at one of the two locations would be "mandatory", splitting the
meetings up into any more locations would be unmanageable. We could share
video, voice, and a computer screen for the plenary sessions, and then
split into smaller working groups which may not have video, but would have
shared voice and screen.
While this compromise solution results in a less effective meeting than a
full f2f, I think it addresses a lot of people's concerns. It means a
little more work for the local organizers, but I, at least, am very
interested in trying to make this work since this problem comes up often.
I've participated in smaller meetings (4-8 people) using only
teleconferencing and shared screens/whiteboards and they were all
extremely effective (The quality of the speakerphone is absolutely
critical). I'd be interested in seeing if it scales to a larger meeting.
Regarding the time difference (5 hours), a slight shift in the normal work
schedule (which will be much easier than dealing with jetlag) can give us
six hours of overlap: Europe meeting convenes at, say, 10AM and breaks at
noon for lunch. Returning at 1. US meeting convenes at that time (8AM)
and both run together for the next six hours (until 7PM Europe and 2PM
US). Europe group adjourns for the day, US group breaks for (a late)
lunch, reconvening for a couple of hours after lunch.
Or, obviously, if we feel joint time should be stretched, we could
compromise on the meeting times, pushing the US meeting time to 7AM-3PM,
and the Europe meeting time to noon-8PM, with working meals when
appropriate on each end.
Finally, Ian is collecting information on how many people we'd actually
lose if we go ahead with the Manchester choice, please let him know
positive or negative ASAP.
-Chris
Dr. Christopher A. Welty, Knowledge Structures Group
IBM Watson Research Center, 19 Skyline Dr.
Hawthorne, NY 10532 USA
Voice: +1 914.784.7055, IBM T/L: 863.7055
Fax: +1 914.784.6078, Email: welty@us.ibm.com